Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925-1927

Background: In response to growing public opinion against the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in the years following World War I, Congress passed first the Quota Act of 1921 then the even more restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act). Initially, the 1924 law imposed a total quota on immigration of 165,000--less than 20 percent of the pre-World War I average. It based ceilings on the number of immigrants from any particular nation on the percentage of each nationality recorded in the 1890 census--a blatant effort to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, which mostly occurred after that date. In the first decade of the 20th century, an average of 200,000 Italians had entered the United States each year. With the 1924 Act, the annual quota for Italians was set at less than 4,000. This table shows the annual immigration quotas under the 1924 Immigration Act.

Northwest Europe and Scandinavia            Eastern and Southern Europe            Other Countries

Country                 Quota.                                 Country                Quota                   Country        Quota

Germany                51,227                               Poland                      5,982                 Africa                1,100
                                                                                                                                      (other than Egypt)

Great Britain          34,007                                Italy                          3,845                 Armenia              124
and Northern Ireland

Irish Free State.     28,567                               Czechoslovakia.       3,073                 Australia              121

Sweden                    9,561                               Russia                      2,248                 Palestine.            100

Norway                    6,453                               Yugoslavia                    671                Syria                    100

France                     3,954                               Romania                       603                Turkey                 100

Denmark                  2,789                               Portugal                        503                Egypt                  100

Switzerland              2,081                               Hungary                        473                New Zealand      100
                                                                                                                                     & Pacific Islands

Netherlands             1,648                               Lithuania                       344                All others          1,900

Austria                        785                               Latvia                            142  

Belgium                      512                               Spain                             131  

Finland                       471                               Estonia                          124  

Free City of Danzig    228                               Albania                          100  

Iceland                       100                               Bulgaria                         100  

Luxembourg              100                               Greece                           100  

Total (Number).   142,483                             Total (Number).       18,439             Total (Number).    3,745

Total (%)                     86.5                            Total (%)                       11.2             Total (%)                   2.3

       

(Total Annual immigrant quota: 164,667)   

Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1929), 100.